Various methods, containers and auxiliary devices for providing insulation to a container to keep the contents of a container warm/cold and to lessen the effects of the transfer of heat to or from a user's hand are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,699,216, titled “Two-Piece Insulated Cup,” issued to Smith et al. on Apr. 20, 2010, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, describes an insulating vessel formed with ribs located between sidewalls of an inner cup and an outer cup. The inner cup may be formed of paper; the outer cup may be formed of a thermoplastic. As other examples, corrugated substrates may be provided to form portions of a container and/or coatings may be provided on one or more surfaces.
Other known containers may incorporate stacking features and/or stiffening features, such as ridges, ledges, ribs, indentations, etc. Forming each of these features generally requires a separate manufacturing step or increases the complexity of the manufacturing process. Further, containers formed of multiple parts or complexly formed parts may also increase the complexity and cost of the manufacturing process.
Thus, while insulating containers and jackets according to the prior art may provide a number of advantageous features, they nevertheless may have certain limitations. The present invention seeks to overcome certain of these limitations and other drawbacks of the prior art, and to provide new features not heretofore available.